Abstract
Throughout the 1980s, and singularly in the 1990s, the political, economic, cultural, and social contradictions in the postcolonial state in Africa seemed to reach their apex with more than a third of the African states either collapsing or at the risk of doing so.1 Even for those not threatened with total breakdown, the toll that the so-called lost decade (the 1980s) took on the economy and society in general was heavy and unavoidable. Most African countries exhibited all the signs of advanced organizational, financial, and political decay. In response to this multitude of crises of which the nature of the state seemed to be the locus of inquiry, scholarly interest in the nature, role, and dynamics of the African state increased.2 This growing interest in the state generated a copious number of studies that attempted to shed more light on the critical dimension of the African reality.3 I. William Zartman, in an introduction to his edited volume on the grim phenomenon of state collapse in Africa in the 1990s, identifies the following as one of the scenarios that could lead to state collapse.
[A]fter being in power for a long time [the political order] wears out its ability to satisfy the demands of various groups in society. Resources dry up, either for exogenous reasons or through internal waste and corruption (selective misallocation). Social and ethnic groups feel neglected and alienated, causing an atmosphere of dissatisfaction and opposition, which in turn draws increased repression and use of the police and military to keep order. With nobody to watch the watchmen, the military moves in to take over.4
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Notes
John Nellier, “States in Danger,” 1993, mimeo, has identified twenty African states in either “serious” or “maximum” danger of collapse. Cited in I. William Zartman, “Introduction: Posing the Problem of Collapsed States,” in Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority ed. I. William Zartman (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), p. 3.
The consensus is that this fashion was launched by studies such as those of Peter Evans, Dietrich Rueschmeyer, and Theda Skopol, Bringing the State Back in (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985)
See also Eric Northlinger, “Taking the State Seriously,” in Understanding Political Development, ed. Samuel Huntington and Marion Weiner (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1987), pp. 353–390
Stephen Krasner, “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics,” Comparative Politics, no. 16, 1984, pp. 223–246.
See, for example, Leonardo Villalon and Phillip Huxtable, eds., The African State at a Critical Juncture: Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, Publishers, 1997)
James Wunch and Dele Olowu, eds., The Failure of the Centralized State: Institution and Self-Governance in Africa (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990)
Pierre Englebert, State Legitimacy and Development in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, Publishers, 2000), among others.
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 1947), p. 154.
Jean-François Médard, “Conclusion,” in Etats d’Afrique Noire: Formation, Mecanismes et Crise, ed. Jean-François Médard (Paris: Khartala, 1991), p. 357.
Leonardo Villalon, “The Africa State at a the End of the Twentieth Century: Parameters of a Critical Juncture,” in The African State ata Critical Juncture, Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration, ed. Leonardo Villalon and Phillip Huxtable (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1997), p. 9.
Richard Sandbrook, The Politics of Africa’s Economic Stagnation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
Njuguma Ng’ethe, “Strongmen, State Formation, Collapse, and Reconstruction in Africa,” in Collapsed States: The Disintegration and Restoration of Legitimate Authority, ed. I. William Zartman (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1995), p. 256.
See, for example, Jean-François Médard, “L’Etat Neo-Patrimonial en Afrique Noire,” in Etats d’Afrique Noire: Formation, Mecanismes et Crise, ed. Jean-François Médard (Paris: Khartala, 1991)
Zaki Ergas, ed., The African State in Transition (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987)
Michael Bratton and Nicholas van de Walle, “Neopatrimonial Regimes and Democratic Transition in Africa,” World Politics, vol. 46, no. 4, 1994, pp. 453–489.
Jerome Vogel, “Culture Politics and National Identity in Cote d’Ivoire,” Social Search, vol. 58, no. 2, 1991, p. 453.
Robert Fatton, Jr., “Bringing the Ruling Class Back in, Class, State, and Hegemony,” Comparative Politics, vol. 20, no. 3, 1988, p. 253.
As argued by Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, “The Marginalization of the African State,” in African Independence, the First Twenty-Five Years (1945–70), ed. Gwendolen Carter and Patrick O’Meara (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985).
Donal B. Cruise O’Brien, “The Show of State in a Neo-Colonial Twilight: Francophone Africa,” in Rethinking Third World Politics, ed. James Manor (London: Longman, 1991), pp. 145–165.
Victor Levin, “African Patrimonial Regimes in Comparative Perspective,” Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 28, no. 4, 1980, pp. 657–673.
Thomas M. Callaghy, The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).
Richard Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (London: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
Zaki Ergas, “Introduction,” in The African State in Transition, ed. Zaki Ergas (New York, Macmillan Press 1987), pp. 2–3.
Medard, “L’Etat Neopatrimonial,” p. 349. The same theme is developed in the Neo-Marxian mode by Robert Fatton, Predatory Rule: State and Society in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1992).
Jean-François Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (New York: Longman, 1993).
Boubacar N’Diaye, “Beyond the ‘Berlin Conference /OAU framework’: A Pan-African Analysis of Africa’s Security Crisis,” Journal of African Policy Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, 2002, pp. 107–129.
Basil Davidson, The Black Man’s Burden: Africa and the Curse of the Nation-State (New York: Times Books, 1992), p. 260.
Pierre Englebert, State Legitimacy and Development in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2000).
Crawford Young, The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), p. 37
Leonardo Villalon and Phillip Huxtable, eds., The African State ata Critical Juncture, Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1997).
Phillip Huxtable, “The African State Toward the Twenty-First Century: Legacies for the Critical Juncture,” in The African State at a Critical Juncture, Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration, ed. Leonardo Villalon and Phillip Huxtable (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996), pp. 279–280.
J.F. Amon d’Aby, La Cote d’Ivoire dans la Cité Africaine (Paris: Editions La rose, 1951), p. 14.
Georges Ayyiteh, Indigenous African Institutions (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Transnational Publishers, 1991).
Paul Atger, La France en Cote d’Ivoire de 1843–1893, Cinquante Ans d’Hesitations Politiques et Commerciales (Dakar, Senegal: Publications de la Cite Historique, 1962), pp. 182–183.
Marcel Amondji, Felix Houphouet la Cote d’Ivoire, L’Envers d’une Legende (Paris: Khartala, 1984), pp. 27–51.
See Francis Wangah Wodie, Institutions Politiques et Droit Public en Cote d’Ivoire (Abidjan: Presses Universitaires de Cote d’Ivoire, 1996), pp. 46–53.
In fact, this author had warned against the increased probability of a military intervention. See Boubacar N’Diaye, The Challenge of Institutionalizing Civilian Control: Botswana, Ivory Coast, and Kenya in Comparative Perspective (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2001).
See Jeanne M. Toungara, “The Apotheosis of Cote d’Ivoire’s Nana Houphouet-Boigny,” Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 28, no. 1, 1990, pp. 23–54.
See Howard French, “Houphouet’s Region,” Africa Report, vol. 31, no. 6, 1986, pp. 9–13.
For a discussion of the concept of Dialogue, see Michael Cohen, Urban Policy and Political Conflict in Africa (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974).
Aristide Zolberg, One Party-Government in the Ivory Coast (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969).
Jean-François Medard, “La Regulation Socio-Politique,” in Etat et Bourgeoisie en Cote d’Ivoire, ed. Yves Fauré and Jean-François Medard (Paris: Khartala, 1991), p. 72.
Quoted in Robert Jackson and Carl Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 148.
See Robert Mundt, Historical Dictionary of Cote d’Ivoire 2nd ed. (Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, 1996), pp. 117–118, 171.
Dwayne Woods, “Cote d’Ivoire: The Crisis of Distributive Politics,” in The African State at a Critical Juncture, Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration ed. Leonardo Villalon and Phillip Huxtable (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1996), pp. 214–215.
Tessilimi, Bakary, “Elite Transformation and Political Succession,” in The Political Economy of the Ivory Coast, ed. I. William Zartman and Christopher Delgado (New York: Praeger, 1984), pp. 21–55
also Pascal Teya, Le Rai est Nu (Paris: Harmattan, 1985).
George Ayyiteh, Africa Betrayed (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), p. 242.
John Chipman, French Military Policy and African Security (London: The International Strategic Studies, 1985)
Guy Martin, “The Historical Economic, and Political Bases of France’s African Policy,” Journal of Modern African Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 1985, pp. 189–208.
See Richard Crook, “Patrimonialism, Administrative Effectiveness, and Economic Development in Cote d’Ivoire,” Africa Affairs, vol. 88, no. 351, 1989, pp. 216–219.
For a well-informed discussion of the formative years and substance of these relations see, D. Bach, “L’Insertion dans les Rapports Internationaux,” in Etat et Bourgeoisie en Cote d’Ivoire, ed. Yves Fauré and Jean-François Medard (Paris: Khartala, 1984), pp. 113–121.
De Gaulle stated that Ivory Coast was one the countries in which France “would have to intervene,” should it be necessary. See Phillipe Gaillard, Foccart Parle: Entretiens avec Phillipe Gaillard vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard/Jeune Afrique, 1995), p. 288.
For a fascinating as well as revealing testimony of Jacques Foccart himself on the extent and implication of his activities, see Gaillard, Foccart Parle: Entretiens avec Phillipe Gaillard vol. 1 (Paris: Fayard/Jeune Afrique, 1995), pp. 288–290.
See Jon Woronoff, West African Wager: Houphouet vs. Nkrumah (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1972), pp. 201–234.
In the more cautious category,see Yves Fauré and Jean-François Medard, “Introduction,” in Etat et Bourgeoisie en Cote d’Ivoire, ed. Yves Fauré and Jean-François Medard (Paris: Khartala, 1984), pp. 11–18.
The formula is Samir Amin’s Le Development du Capitalism en Cote d’Ivoire, (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1967), p. 281.
Other studies concurred. See, for example, Bonnie Campbell, “The Ivory Coast,” in West African States: Failure and Promise, ed. John Dunn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
Robert Mundt, “Continuity and Change in a Semi-Democracy,” in Political Reform in Francophone Africa, ed. John Clark (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 187–188.
See Kaye Whiteman, “The Gallic Paradox,” Africa Report, vol. 36, no. 1, 1990, pp. 17–19.
See Laurent Gbagbo, La Cote d’Ivoire: Pour une Alternative Démocratique (Paris: Harmattan, 1983).
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© 2007 Pita Ogaba Agbese and George Klay Kieh, Jr.
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N’Diaye, B. (2007). The State in Cote d’Ivoire: Evolution and Constraints. In: Agbese, P.O., Kieh, G.K. (eds) Reconstituting the State in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230606944_3
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